


a prayer for fire

by teaspice



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: this is gen but I keep imagining future BanexBlake, which is SO VERY WRONG in this context I'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspice/pseuds/teaspice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bane escapes the Pit with Talia. In Gotham, with dark memories resurfacing, Bane crosses paths with the child John Blake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a prayer for fire

Three years ago Talia saved Bane from the Pit.

 

She was only a child then: thin, angular, all wren bones and gaunt cheeks with a fire burning behind her eyes. But she was stubborn, so very stubborn, and though the men of the Pit were clambering over each other for a taste of her flesh, she refused to make the climb. She clung to Bane even as he raised her to the first foothold, even as he begged her to leave him.

 

_Go, beloved, go. There is no time to be afraid. Go!_

 

 _I won’t go without you,_  she said to him, grasping at his wrist with one small hand.  _I’m not afraid, but if you don’t climb, then neither will I._

 

And because Bane loved her and wanted her to live, he followed her into the light.

 

Bane has learned a great deal about living in the world since then. He has learned about the vastness of the world, the aching terrible beauty of it. He has watched Talia learn to laugh and walk tall, as if she holds all its magnificence in the palm of her hand. He has learned to kill for money; to serve cowardly men who need others to spill blood so their own hands may remain clean. He has learned that crime knows no borders, and that there are men across the globe willing to pay handsomely for Bane’s particular skillset.

 

Bane does not respect the men he serves, but they give him the wealth and power to ensure Talia’s safety. Bane would kill a hundred thousand men to keep Talia safe. He has no regrets. The light of the world is blinding, but it is also a life-giver. Under its influence, Talia has learned to rise beyond the squalor of the Pit. She shines.

 

Tonight, under the cracked flicker of a broken street lamp, Bane watches four thugs slice a man through the belly and feels the dark of the Pit clawing at his feet. The light suddenly seems very far away. Even Talia’s smile goes dim in his mind, blurred by memories of the Pit. Three years. Too soon, it seems, to forget.

 

Death does not disturb him, but the nature of this kill - the way the men fall on their victim like jackals, clawing open his guts, laughing as he sobs and tries to hold his insides  _in_  - reminds him of the cloying madness of the Pit, the way men turned on one another like rabid dogs. This is not the efficient kill his employer demanded - this is an act of pleasure, a sadistic frenzy.

 

The festering rot that made the Pit such a hell is not confined to Bane’s old prison. In Gotham it flowers.

 

 _We will leave this city,_  thinks Bane. Gotham has been good to Talia - the identity she has cultivated along with Bane’s recently gained wealth have allowed her access to the upper echelons of society. She goes to school alongside the daughters of politicians and business tycoons. But there are other cities in the world where Talia will have the chance to rise, and when Bane’s work for Daggett is done he will take her to one of them.

 

The man is still sobbing on the ground as the thugs circle him, laughing. This has gone on long enough.

 

“You have not killed him yet,” Bane notes in a mild voice. “You were paid for death, not torture.”

 

“He’ll bleed out,” one man says, shooting Bane a nervous glance. The men fear him. Bane has been reliably informed (by Talia) that they probably find his mask intimidating. “Or he’ll get infected. Either way, he’s done for. It doesn’t matter.”

 

“Sloppy,” Bane says disapprovingly, although lessons are wasted on one such as this. No death is certain. Not even this one. “Leave,” he says. “I will finish this.”

 

The thugs obey.

 

Bane walks towards the man on the ground, who is watching him with wide, hazy eyes. He tries to scramble away from Bane, but it is an impossible task. His legs are broken. His guts are spilling out of him.

 

“Please,” the man chokes out hurriedly, lips bubbling with blood. “Please, please don’t kill me. I’ve got a kid, good kid, he needs me, there’s no one else, can’t leave him alone,  _please - ”_

 

“You are going to die no matter what I do,” Bane tells him, kneeling down beside him. “You are wounded beyond repair.”

 

“No,” the man sobs. “I can’t,  _no._  Can’t leave him alone. Please. It was just a little money, I would have paid. I would have…” A shudder wracks his body; dark liquid, thick and viscous, slips between the fingers trying to clench his wound shut. “ _God.”_

 

“Pray, if you like,” Bane says levelly. “I will make this quick.”

 

The man stares up at him as Bane’s hand closes around his neck. His pain-hazed eyes seem to look through Bane, piercing beyond flesh.

 

“Robin,” he gasps. Then Bane breaks his neck, and he dies.

 

Bane thumbs his eyes shut. Tonight’s work is done.

 

The man has a wallet in his jacket. There are credit cards, a condom, a small roll of bills; but Bane’s attention is caught by the dog-eared photograph tucked behind them. The photograph is of a woman and a small boy - most likely the man’s wife, and the child he spoke so much of.

 

The woman is unsmiling with dark, serious eyes and curling black hair. The boy is almost a miniature of her: dark-eyed, dark haired, pale. But he’s smiling. There’s a slight gap between his front teeth. A dimple on his cheek.

 

His smile is nothing like Talia’s. And still, Bane pauses.

 

He looks at the man’s corpse. Flickering orange light carves sickly shadows across his skin. He died crying out a name. The woman’s? The child’s?

 

(He remembers Talia’s mother turning to watch as he dragged Talia to safety, as the men dragged her to her death. He remembers how she bit her lip until it bled and said nothing, nothing. Not a single word passed her lips.)

 

He folds the photograph up carefully. Tucks it into his pocket.

 

“Well, Richard Blake,” he murmurs. “I suppose it is time to meet your son.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bane does not know what impulse drives him to go to Blake’s apartment. Talia would be furious with him if she knew. But Talia is safe at home, and tonight the darkness feels too close for comfort. He is haunted by memories of another dead parent, of another child left alone. Three years, and he still wakes up from nightmares of Talia being dragged down into darkness by hundreds of clawing hands.

 

This is a thing he must do. Instinct tells him so, and tonight Bane does not feel inclined to resist.

 

Richard Blake’s apartment is small and squalid, in one of the poorest sectors of Gotham. The heating and electricity are off; the door handle is loose. Bane enters without attempting to mask his presence. The child is not out in the open, but this does not surprise him. If he has any sense, he is hiding. Bane’s employer is vindictive, and it would not be beyond him to send someone to Richard Blake’s apartment in order to burn it to the ground.

 

Bane finds him hiding in the bathroom. He is sitting on the edge of the window sill; preparing to leap, perhaps, if it is required. A resourceful move, but foolish - the sheer drop would kill him. The boy is older than he was in the photograph, but he cannot be more than ten or eleven. He’s holding a butcher knife, clearly swiped from the kitchen. He is trembling, terrified, but his dark eyes are narrow and fierce.

   

“Don’t come any closer,” the child says, baring his teeth like a small animal. Although he trembles, his grip on the knife is steady. “I’ll stab you.”

 

 _I am sure you would try,_  Bane thinks, but does not say it. Taunting will do him no good here.

 

“I am not here to hurt you,” Bane says, and the child raises the knife higher. Bane takes another step closer regardless, then stops.

 

Of course the child is scared. Bane is still wearing his mask. He wears it to protect his identity and to intimidate his lessers, but there is no use in intimidating this child. Carefully, slowly, he unbuckles the mask and lowers it so the boy can see Bane’s face.

 

Bane has come to understand, in the last few years, that he does not have the face of a brute or a villain. There is a false softness to him that puts people at ease. They see his relative youth, the wideness of his eyeness and the softness of his mouth, and assume these things translate into trustworthiness and a gentle spirit. Not so. But the illusion serves him well now, as it always does. The knife lowers a fraction.

 

“There is no need to be afraid, Robin,” Bane says gently.

 

The boy jumps a little, and Bane realises his assumption was correct. This is the Robin that Richard Blake prayed to on his dying breath. It is an act Bane can understand: when he dies, Talia’s name will surely be the last one on his lips.

 

“Your father sent me,” Bane tells him.

 

“Why?” blurts out Robin. The knife has been lowered completely now. There’s a fire in Robin’s eyes, a hint of hunger in his expression that shines as bright as a small sun in the grim squalor of Blake’s home. He loves his father. His love burns in him. “Is he okay? When is he coming home?”

 

Bane does not answer immediately. He crosses the distance between them, stooping to Robin’s level. The boy stares at him, earnest, pleading.

 

“He sent me to protect you because he no longer can,” Bane tells him, voice soft. This close, he can see the anguish flicker in the boy’s eyes. He is just a child, but he understands. His father is dead.

 

“No,” Robin says, lip trembling. “You’re lying.”

 

“I am sorry,” says Bane.

 

Robin shakes his head. He stares at Bane with unblinking eyes, as if that will keep the tears at bay.

 

This child, Bane thinks with quiet wonder, is a bright spot in the darkness. There is a rot in Gotham, a festering decay, but it has not touched this boy, and now Bane is here, it never will.  

 

Talia will certainly be furious with him. But she has a soft heart for lost lambs. She will come to understand.

 

“Will you come with me, Robin?” Bane asks. He holds a hand out to Robin. Palm open. “Will you let me keep you safe?”

 

Robin stares at him and stares at him. He looks at Bane the way another child looked at him, so many years ago. He looks at Bane like they are the last two people left in a dark universe. He looks at him with hope.

 

He places his small hand inside Bane’s own.

 

“Yes,” he says. “I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a snippet of a larger AU I may write at some point where there is probably eventually (AFTER MANY YEARS) some very wrong BanexBlake. I have no excuses.


End file.
